The Snake In the Bedroom
by TheBattyWhiteCrow
Summary: A short, light story in which Loki is actually mischievous after over hearing a very, very poorly thought out bet.


Winter was fed up with the fanciful ideas of Tea, and who SHE thought Winter should 'date'.

Winter considered herself a reasonable woman, patient, even. But after a few hundred years of this nonsense, even her nerves were fraying.

"I think finding your true love would be great for you! Oh, imagine how you'd look at one another.. With respect, love, adoration..." Tea babbled on incessantly, stubbornly ignoring Winter's dry laugh and objections.

"My 'True Love' eh? Ooh," Winter scoffed with a growing smirk, "Shall we search for a talking ogre and jackass next? Or do we skip right to the 'SLAY THE DRAGON!' Bit of the fairy tale?"

"You'd be more friendly, I think." Tea concluded distractedly "And, oh! You'd definitely have kids! You seem like the kind of woman who should have kids. Always have!" Tea blinked as a sobering thought placed itself predominantly before her mind. For a moment, when Tea's face fell in realisation and a frown of concentration settled itself on her brow, Winter hoped reality had sobered Tea's consistently delusional thoughts.

"Do you think we could have a play date between your kids and mine?" She inquired curiously.

"I THINK that we should have you medicated. It's my fault, really, I should have had you committed the day you came to me insisting that you got kissed by," Winter spread her fingers in a mocking display of embellishment, "Spider Man."

"He did kiss me! Upside down in the rain! Then, oddly, he called me Mary Jane." Tea puzzled aloud with an adorably scrunched up, thoughtful face.

"That's probably the chick he MEANT to be kissing." Winter stated bluntly.

"... It wasn't a particularly good kiss, anyway." Tea dismissed quickly, throwing a bored hand through the air dramatically. "I mean, you can't really kiss anyone really well when one of them is upside down, if you could, it'd be a meme by now. Nah, it's kinda like, ooh.. You ever hang upside down for five minutes? At some point, you get dizzy, it's hard to think, just want to get back upright-"

Winter lost interest in Tea's nonsense on the art and mistakes of upside down kissing, and instead drank in her old friend's appearance with attentive eyes.

Tea was thinner than she had been two years ago, and seemed to carry herself in a more fragile manner, as if she were a porcelain doll that feared the cracks and bumps of the world. Her loss of weight, Winter internally considered, was unwarranted and unhealthy. Tea has never been a large woman to start with, being on the lightest side of the weight spectrum since as long as Winter had known her. Yet, Tea had felt the need for a diet, of sorts, apparently.

No, Winter considered as Tea blathered on obliviously, not a diet. It obviously wasn't healthy. Her once bright golden hair was now dry and frayed at the ends. Her slender frame was now stretched awkwardly, a stark comparison to the grace her form has always commanded. Tea's skin, Winter noticed, was dried and paled, unlike the colorful shades of flesh that once belonged to Tea.

Tea's dark brown shirt hung loosely over her body, and her jeans were belted tightly, the end of the leather strip jutting out the side proudly. Tied to the belt were thirteen stands of various braided string and hemp, which ended with a single star each. Tea had always had the stars, at least as long as Winter had known her.

It had something to do with the fact Tea had thirteen children, as far as Winter could tell.

"-And so all the spit just kinda SITS there and-"

"You've lost weight." Winter prompted innocently, as if this idea had just occurred to her.

"Hehe, thank you!" Tea beamed happily, swaying slightly where she stood in delight.

"It wasn't a compliment."

"Wah? Yes it is!" Tea froze, gesturing quickly between the two women with her delicate hands.

"No, it's not. Neglecting your own personal needs is sort sighted, dangerous and stupid. Besides, you have thirteen children. Passing out due to lack of nutrition is not an option." Winter answered with a tired sigh escaping her lips as she pressed her fingertips to her aching head, "Skeletons are not sexy. Humans need to stop imitating them."

"I didn't lose the weight on purpose! I just... Well.." Tea lowered her head and bashfully peered through her eyelashes to Winter in shy defeat. "Couldn't afford a proper diet, for me, at least. The boys are going through another growth spurt, and the girls needed new clothes.."

"What diet COULD you afford for yourself?"

"You know those instant noodles in the back of the grocery store?"

"That's not ideal, but it's not the worst there is." Winter considered with an indulgent nod. Tea had always been short on money, with thirteen children and no father, it was expected.

What was ALSO expected, was that Tea would call up Winter in the case of financial troubles. She always had in the past.

So, why hadn't Tea called THIS time?

... Damn woman, making me fidget and worry.. Winter thought sorely.

"I can afford one of those packets every other day." Tea finished with a hopeful smile.

"Damn it, Tea!" Winter exclaimed in frustration.

"I know you're mad I didn't call.." Tea consoled, spreading her fingertips as she held out her hands soothingly in Winter's direction, a timid grin dancing across her nervous features as she did so.

"Do you? Do you REALLY?" Winter growled, leaning back slightly as she crosses her arms before herself in impatience.

"And I was going to call you.. But..." Tea started, and realizing that Winter wasn't going to interrupt, turned a deep red as she stormed through her mind quickly for some excuse.

"Ho, this should be good. But..?" Winter prompted dryly with a stale grin forced across her features in a terrifying attempt to appear calm.

"I.. Uhm.. Was looking for your true love." Tea admitted with a twitch of a hopeful smile across her parted lips.

"Damn it, Tea!"

"I figured I could multi task!" Tea defended herself, shrugging her arms as if she's simply forgotten to carry the one in a complex math problem. As if it was not as though she was starving herself to indulge her delusions. "You know, call you for help and convince you to take one guy I thought was your true love on a date!"

"Naive nonsense! Let me guess.." Winter grinned softly, shaking her head in disapproval, "You couldn't find a single one. Predictable. Movies have been made of this, you know. Entire novels, even. People like me don't get significant others. I'm the kind of person in a novel that every one HOPES hooks up with someone else, but never does. You know, to keep people on their toes."

"I found three true loves for you."

"Ha!"

"Love would be good for you, Winter! You need it! Someone to-"

"I do NOT need someone. Besides, I'd sooner invite a poisonous snake to sleep in my bed than care the slightest for any of these three men you have found."

"Aww, Winter.. Now you're just being mean.. At least go on a date with each of them.. They're all do excited about it.. It'd be terribly rude.."

"Ha," Winter laughed shortly at the idea, and then realizing that Tea was serious, burst into a whole hearted, earth shaking guffaw, "Hahaha!"

"I'll leave you alone on the true love front." Tea deadpanned seriously.

Winter's laughter froze in her lips, a conniving grin crossing her features as she returned her attention to Tea, "You have a deal, Tea." Winter informed curtly, her long, loose hair of a silver shade twisting boredly across her back at the whims of a passing breeze.

What could she say? She was fed up with the fanciful ideas of Tea, and who SHE thought Winter should 'date'.

OoOoOo

"Interesting." Loki considered aloud. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, well, not at first. Granted, he did wear a different form that Winter, a trader based in Asgard, would not recognize. But originally, the change in appearance had been to simply blend into Midgard's population, as Winter was always scolding him for failing to do properly.

And granted, he HAD followed her without revealing himself. But it had been to observe the habits of the woman, and more specifically, how she obtained her best selling wares from 'No where in particular' to sell on Asgard.

It just so happened Tea had appeared. And it just so happened that the conversation between the two women interested him FAR too much to interrupt.

Funny how things worked out sometimes.

"Oh, this WILL be fun." Loki concluded with a growing smirk as his mind filled with devious schemes.

\- A/N

I wrote this on a kindle, so if you see a weird that seems out of place, it's because auto correct tried to ram it in and I missed it in the 2 hours of editing I've done on this.

Hmm... what else... Oh yes!

REVIEW, PLEASE! REAL LOKI FANS REVIEW!


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